Office Hours
EPH HEADED BACK down the hall to his office. He wasn’t sure what to make of the meeting, other than that keeping his mouth shut had seemed the sensible thing. Treating college students like coddled babies didn’t strike him as the best idea, but this was no time to tilt at windmills. He would keep his head down and teach.
The other day, Devon’s newly formed Committee on Art in Public Spaces had used plywood boards to cover up part of a monument dedicated to Devon students who had lost their lives in the Civil War—but only the half with names of the Confederate students. Planks of wood literally covered up half of this beautiful bronze plaque. You could stand against racism and slavery, Eph reasoned, but still think some of this was overwrought.
Eph certainly thought of himself as a progressive, and by the standards of the Deep South, he certainly was. He hated guns, was supportive of abortion rights and the environment, and so on. Mostly, his politics were representative of what they weren’t: the gun-toting, pickup-driving, shit-talking, revival-tent world of his youth. If progressive was the opposite of that, then that’s what he was. But something about the latest winds blowing through campus had a dark edge, as if a subtle transition were going on from the American Revolution to the French. Devon had no shortage of Robespierre wannabes. Maybe when he had tenure, he would express these thoughts more. For right now, though, he didn’t care much one way or the other about the political winds, be they blowing from the left or right. Politics would come and go, but literature was forever.
“Hello?”
Someone was knocking gently on his open door. It was his four o’clock, the girl who wanted to talk about her paper. He immediately recognized her, now matching the face with the name. She was the striking girl who normally sat on the left and didn’t speak much. She was one of the few frequently late for class, he recalled.
“Come in, Miss … Harris. Have a seat.”
Lulu shut the door.
“Uh, would you mind just keeping that open a bit? School policy.” Eph recalled this point made rather emphatically in his HR training. Lulu opened the door about six inches and sat down in the chair next to Eph’s desk. Eph didn’t like to put the visitor’s chair on the far side of the desk because he felt it made him too intimidating, less accessible. Not that he felt intimidating, but he remembered his own reluctance around teachers when he was younger. “What can I do for you today?”
“Well, first I wanted to say just how much I enjoy your class. It’s my favorite. I find it … stimulating.”
“Thank you.” That’s nice. A bit suck-uppy, but nice.
“I wanted to ask about my paper. I was thinking about contrasting the role of women as depicted by the Realists and the Romantics.”
“Excellent idea.”
“For my Realist, I thought I would go with Louisa May Alcott.”
“Another great idea. She wrote about very spirited, independent women. Do you know she was from Massachusetts and actually grew up around Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau? Right there you have an interesting angle.”
“Well, that’s where I’m having trouble. Women in the Realist era I get. Writers like Alcott portrayed strong women who defied the conventions of society to pursue their own dreams. But the Romantics portrayed them as either succubus bitches or silent sheep who served at the pleasure of their men. Or as victims to be chopped up, like with Poe. And Thoreau apparently didn’t think women existed at all.”
Eph chuckled and was impressed with Lulu’s breezy knowledge of the subject, not considering the information that fifteen minutes with Google might confer. “So what’s the issue?”
“Which Romantic do I pick? Their women were so much less interesting.”
“I think you already answered your own question. The Romantics’ views were not monolithic. Just a second ago you listed at least four approaches they had toward women. Pick one and run with it, although you’re right about Thoreau—he may not give you much material.”
“What about Emerson?”
“Emerson was quite progressive for the time. There may not be enough contrast there for an interesting paper, but you’re welcome to try.”
“You like Emerson, don’t you?”
“One of my favorites, yes,” Eph replied.
“Alcott was in love with him, wasn’t she?”
“It’s true. Thoreau as well.”
“And they were both much older men, weren’t they?”
“Yes, in Emerson’s case, three decades.”
“How interesting.” Lulu leaned forward, smiling slightly, right at Eph.
The sudden shift in the mood made him uncomfortable. Why is she looking at me like that? “Well, I have a five o’clock, so…”
“It’s four-fifteen,” said Lulu.
“Uh, yes, I know, but I have to, you know, prepare.”
“Okay, Professor. Thanks for your help.”
She left, but just before she did, she winked.
What is it with winks around here? He was pretty sure this one was different from Titus Cooley’s avuncular wink. Was he still attractive to a girl that age? The thought pleased him.
Gummy Bears
RED AND OTHER members of the Progressive Student Alliance were hanging out on Goodwin Green, an open space near the center of Devon’s campus. It was surrounded by ancient elms, now showing the slightest hint of cooler weather to come. The group sat down on a spot where the grass hadn’t been worn by Frisbee throwers.
“I’ve got a hacky sack, if anyone’s into it,” Robbie Ochoa said.
“Dude, don’t be such a cliché,” Red said. “No one’s played hacky sack since the Clinton administration. Besides, I have something better. He pulled out a cellophane wrapper and carefully unfolded it.
“Gummy bears?”
“Special gummy bears, from Colorado, where this particular kind of gummy bear is perfectly legal. Mock not, or I will not share.” Red passed around two gummies to each person. “In these, we will find inspiration.”
“Do we eat both at once?” someone asked.
“Live for the day, man,” Red answered, popping them into his mouth. They all followed suit.
Gaia was staring into the distance, as if looking for something. “I don’t feel anything.”
“Lie back, it will come.”
“I don’t feel anything, either,” Gabe Amato said.
“Hey, dumbass, we just took them about thirty seconds ago. Just shut the fuck up and let it come.”
“I feel like you’re being a dick, Red,” Gaia said. “Remember your first year here? I think people were playing hacky sack then.”
Red ignored her. They lay in silence for a bit, trying to discern any shift in their perceptions.
“Wait, I think I feel something,” Robbie offered, looking at the sky with increasing curiosity.
“You guys act like you’ve never been high before when, really, it’s been what, eighteen hours?” said Red.
“Never done magic gummies, man,” Gabe said.
This prompted giggling.
“Let your minds go, my brothers and sisters, and imagine our future together. The PSA will rise up and be a feared presence on this campus. We will make them listen.”
“Listen to what?” Gabe asked, still staring at a cloud, one that now looked a great deal like a friendly clown.
“To what? To the plight of the oppressed. To the will of the people. To every brother of color who’s been gunned down by the blue and every sister ever held down by the old boys and their patriarchy. To every lake and every tree that’s ever been poisoned by big corporations at the altar of mammon. To every gay, lesbian, queer, trans, bi, or questioning person struggling with their identity. To every Muslim brother, afraid of being attacked by fascists for their beliefs. To our giant fucking megaphone that will allow no sleep as long as we live in a society that oppresses the less privileged.”
There was a pause as they took it in.
“Shit, man, could we just maybe pick
one of those?” Robbie asked.
“Red’s big-picture, Robbie. Focus is not his strong suit.” Gaia’s voice had a curious edge.
“We need to do it all, to address the entire matrix of oppression. But Robbie’s right. We start small—and build. We need to sow the seeds of chaos, only then can we tear down the prevailing order. My friends, this campus is asleep, and we are the alarm clock.”
“Testify!” Robbie cried. Gabe made a trilling noise like an alarm clock, which drew some giggles. At that, the group fell silent for a time, focusing on the changing cloud patterns. They swirled and danced against the blue sky.
“Man, you guys should have seen Gaia sticking it to this prof the other day. English 212,” Gabe said, breaking the spell.
“Thanks for noticing, Gabe,” Gaia said.
“What are you talking about?” Red asked, only faintly interested. He was more interested in the chimerical effects of THC, descending on him like a pleasant fog.
“I feel like it’s a class about white supremacy,” Gaia said. “I mean, we don’t read any writers of color. I said something about it, and this dick totally blew me off.”
“True dat,” agreed Gabe. “You guys ever read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn?”
“I don’t know … in eighth fucking grade maybe? Why?” Red said, still trying to decide if he was interested in the conversation. The fog beckoned.
“We’re reading it for class. Book’s a piece of work.”
“Why?”
“The N-word is all over it. Like, every page,” Gabe said.
“Fuckin’ A it is,” Gaia added.
“Seriously?” Red was still trying to remember if they’d read Huckleberry Finn back at the Buckley School.
“Seriously, bro. Book’s a trigger fest.”
Red sat up, willing the fog away. “You have a copy?”
“Sure as hell.” Gabe rolled over and fished the paperback out of his backpack and tossed it to Red.
Red flipped through it, pausing to read different passages. “Who’s the prof?”
“Russell, something Russell.” Gabe, once again supine, was trying to make out the shape of a particularly vexing cloud.
“Never heard of him. White dude?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Tenured?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“Well, how old is he?”
“I don’t know. Thirties, I guess?”
Red grew excited. He needed to get in touch with Jaylen Biggs over at the Afro-American Cultural Center. “We’re going to bring the Struggle home. It’s Organizing 101. There has to be a target, and the target needs a face.”
Long Live the Queen!
POSSESSING LITTLE HISTORY of its own, the Society of Fellingham’s initiation rights were still a work in progress. They weren’t as barbaric as those boorish fraternities, to be sure. Win Gubbins had heard rumors that over at Beta, pledges were taken one by one, blindfolded, to a second-story balcony where each was instructed to tie a small rope around his scrotum. A brother would then raise a pledge’s blindfold slightly, just enough for him to see he was on a second-story balcony and that the other end of the rope was secured to a cinder block by his feet. The blindfold was replaced and the pledge was asked, “Do you trust the brotherhood?” Allegedly, this was after an entire day of blindfolded activities, including sitting for hours on a basement floor while listening to the song “Baby,” by Justin Bieber, at volume ten, over and over. After answering “Yes, sir!” the pledge, pants and underwear still bundled at his ankles, was told to hold out his arms, into which the cinder block was placed.
The next words were “Throw it.”
By this point in the day, Stockholm syndrome was in full effect and a pledge could be counted on to do pretty much anything, including throwing a cinder block attached to his balls from a twenty-foot balcony. The rope, of course, measured twenty-two feet, which the brothers deemed a sufficient margin for error. It was a source of great hilarity, one heard.
Another time the initiates staged some performance art where they supposedly put whiskey, beer, and some visibly used feminine-hygiene products in a blender. The note de grâce was a live mouse that someone procured from a bio lab. It was dangled and dropped with little splash. Someone hit PURÉE and the pledges were made to drink the resulting cocktail. That skit was deemed disgusting even by Beta standards.
Win wasn’t sure he believed such stories, but those Beta fellows weren’t quite caught up on the evolutionary scale, so anything was possible. He did notice they made their pledges carry them around to classes one day in a sedan chair. He wished he’d thought of that one, what with its colonial overtones.
The Fellingham initiation was a more civilized affair, although it, too, would have its share of adult beverages. When Alexander Hargrove founded the society, he’d googled English initiation rites and discovered that at Cambridge initiates in one drinking society were forced to wear kippers around their necks for a whole day of classes. This struck Hargrove as amusing and appropriately British, so he set off on a tour of Havenport’s markets in search of just the right kippers, preferably ones of considerable pungency. Discovering that Havenport was a kipper-free metropolis, he pronounced the city “uncivilized” and returned to Google, where he discovered that kippers were readily available online. He procured several pounds. Subsequently, each initiate was made to wear a string necklace of a dozen kippers for a day, strung together like puka shells. It became widely known in the Devon community that on the second Thursday of each October one needed to sit as far as possible from anyone who appeared to be wearing a food product around their neck.
* * *
It was seven o’clock, and Win expected the initiates at any moment. There were seven this year, including the fetching Harris girl, which would bring the society up to twenty-six members. Frazier, Shelley, and the others were dressed in black capes, while Win’s was bloodred. Each cape had a hood, which they lowered to obscure their faces. The lights were off, and flickering candles were everywhere. Some were perfumed, to ward off the imminent arrival of rotting kippers.
“They’re coming!” said Frazier, who’d been keeping an eye through a drawn curtain. Win went quickly to the mantel and grasped the scepter, then jogged back to the entry hall. He stood at the center of the others, and they arranged themselves into a phalanx, Win at its point. The doorbell rang.
“Tripp, music,” whispered Win.
Tripp Maynard, another member, got out his phone, which was bluetoothed to some speakers. It began playing some Gregorian chants he’d downloaded earlier in the day.
Attende Domine …
“Who seeks entry?” Win cried, doing his best to lower his voice an octave.
“Uh, you told us to get here at seven?” said a male voice outside the door.
Bloody idiots, thought Win. “Who seeks entry?” He tried to sound angry this time.
“Oh, right. Uh, it is we, the postulants … O … High … Scepter.”
Someone outside snorted.
“Enter!”
* * *
They came through the door, including Lulu, who eyed the robed phalanx and the candles with suspicion. Was this going to be a serious thing? She could only presume this was all done ironically. Best to play along.
Frazier, acting as Win’s right-hand man, pointed at a trash bag near the door. “Remove those bloody fish!”
This was fine with Lulu, who, despite having lost her sense of smell by third period, still found the kippers revolting. Part of her, though, had enjoyed the day. Most people around campus knew about the kippers, and it signaled that she had been chosen for something that they had not, even if they weren’t sure what it was, exactly.
Frazier instructed them to go to the living room and kneel in a row. “Postulants!” he cried. “You will now present us with your offerings.”
The residential houses at Devon each had a grand dining hall with its own unique patterned china, and the postulants
had been instructed to pilfer a full set. Win thought it a fun task to assign, and after all, stealing stuff was an honored college tradition. That the society was low on cash and needed some kitchenware factored only somewhat into the decision.
The postulants held out their plates, which one of the members collected. “You will now each bow before the High Scepter,” said Frazier.
“But we’re already kneeling,” pointed out one of the boys.
“Oh, for God’s sake. Just bow your head a little when he gets to you.”
Win approached the first postulant, a girl from the Philadelphia Main Line. He was accompanied by another member, Fielding Wallace, who wielded a large silver loving cup. “Postulant, state your name!”
“India Knox.”
“Postulant, state your name!”
“India Knox … O High Scepter.”
Win held out the scepter and placed it on India’s shoulder, as if she were being knighted. “India Knox, do you pledge to hold the values of the Society of Fellingham above all others, and do you further pledge to exercise everything in your power to restore the primacy of the queen’s monarchy to all her former subjects?”
“Uh, sure.”
“As a sign of your troth, you will now drink elixir from the Cup of the Marquess.” Fielding leaned down and handed the loving cup to India, who grasped both handles and drank. Lulu looked over and noticed the cup said, William O’Leary—for 40 Years of Dedicated Service—Appetuck Valley Volunteer Fire Department—1984.
“Now, rise.” India stood, and Win placed his right hand on her shoulder, holding the scepter with his left. “You are now a full member in good standing of the Society of Fellingham. Long may you live for its glory!”
“Huzzah! Huzzah!” cried the members.
Win then made his way down the line, repeating the ritual with each postulant. When he got to Lulu, she suppressed the urge to giggle, not to mention ask for the precise definition of troth.
“Absolutely!” she said responsively. She drank from the cup, noting that the elixir of the marquess tasted precisely like Pimm’s No. 1.
Campusland: A Novel Page 6